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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28866075">You Are Not Immune to Jester Lavorre</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostsometime/pseuds/lostsometime'>lostsometime</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Episode Tag, Gen, critical role s2e121 ice and fire, episode 121 tag</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:07:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,816</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28866075</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostsometime/pseuds/lostsometime</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jester turns her "making-evil-people-love-her" dial to MAX and goes to make friends with Lucien.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jester Lavorre &amp; Lucien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>78</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>You Are Not Immune to Jester Lavorre</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucien is sitting moodily by the fire, still somewhat discomfited after the Nein had managed to wheedle some of his history from him.  It shouldn’t still bother him, he thinks.  <em>That kid in Shady Creek Run wasn’t </em>me<em>.  I’m the Nonagon. The rest of it doesn’t matter.</em></p><p>The thing is, it still feels like it matters.</p><p>He tenses visibly when Jester picks her way carefully through the snow drifts to sit by him.  The eyes in his head stay trained on the flickering flames, but the one on his neck shifts to watch her.</p><p>“Hey,” she says after a moment or two of silence.</p><p>“Hey?”</p><p>“So um… Shady Creek Run.  They treated you pretty terribly for being a tiefling, yeah?”</p><p>Jaw clenched, Lucien only nods.</p><p>“Yeah, uh – Fjord said something really similar about growing up in Port Damali.  And Beau, she’s from Kamordah, she said people there are real shitty about tieflings and half-orcs, too.  And you seem like you’ve traveled a lot and I just wanted to ask – is it like that <em>everywhere</em> this side of the Ashkeepers?”</p><p>Lucien looks at her appraisingly.  “And where are you from, then, that this comes as such a surprise to you?”</p><p>“Nicodranas.  Everyone there <em>loves </em>tieflings, or, I mean, at least they love my mama.  I guess I don’t really know about the rest of the city, but in the Lavish Chateau – that’s where I grew up – in the Lavish Chateau everyone really liked tieflings.”</p><p>“Nicodranas, right.  And your mother, that would be…?”</p><p>“Oh, she’s the Ruby of the Sea.  They sing songs about her, have you heard them?  Oh my gosh, I should get Yasha to play one on her harp, she’s gotten so <em>good--</em>”</p><p>“That… won’t be necessary.  I think… yes, I think I may have heard of the Ruby of the Sea, maybe third- or fourth-hand?  But that’s interesting, I never heard tell of her having a daughter.”</p><p>“Oh, no, they wouldn’t know about me!   Nobody ever knew about me.”</p><p>Lucien hums with mild interest, filing that away for potential future use.  He’s started to relax into the silence a bit when Jester pipes up with, “I had really wanted to introduce Molly to my Mama, you know?  I think she would’ve really liked him.  And I <em>know </em>he would’ve <em>loved </em>her, <em>everybody </em>loves her.  Nobody can spend even <em>five minutes </em>around her and not fall in love, that’s how great she is.”</p><p>When she brings up <em>Molly </em>– <em>the fragment, </em>he tells himself <em>– </em>he finds himself gritting his teeth again.  But before he can think of anything to say, the whirlwind of Jester’s babbling has moved on, and she’s talking about something else.  If he addressed it <em>now</em>, it would be <em>him </em>bringing up the subject, which is something he very badly <em>does not want to do</em>.  He wonders, momentarily, if that was deliberate on her part, a little trick to try and manipulate him into asking more about the aberration they call their <em>friend</em>.  Then he dismisses the thought – <em>this girl hasn’t the guile to pull such a subtle trick</em>, he thinks, <em>they’ve just got you rattled.</em></p><p>“And anyway,” Jester is chirping as he brings his focus back to the conversation, “Shady Creek Run is a really shitty place to be even for an adult, so I can’t imagine how awful being a kid there must be!”</p><p>“Mmm.”  Desperate to get her to stop making sad, sympathetic faces at him and thoroughly sick of talking about his childhood, he latches on to a remark that he thinks will put the conversation back under his control.  “You’ve been there, then?  Where’d you stay, then, in the slums?  Or wait, maybe it was the slums.  No, no, it was probably – the slums!”  It’s not much of a joke, but he’s seen Jester laugh over much less.  But when he glances over at her – properly, this time, with the eyes in his face – she looks distinctly uncomfortable.</p><p>Some part of him distantly whispers, <em>good</em>.  <em>She should be at least as uncomfortable as I am.</em>  These thoughts are petty and small-minded and not befitting of the Nonagon, but <em>fuck it </em>he’s had a long day, he’s earned himself some pettiness!</p><p>Jester has begun worrying the hem of her skirt between her fingers.  “Oh, uh, no,” she stammers, “no, I – um, so you’re from around there, you probably – do you know about the Iron Shepherds?”</p><p>Lucien feels everything inside him go very cold, all of a sudden, and very still.  “Aye, I know the Shepherds. Isn’t nobody comes out of Shady Creek Run doesn’t know the Shepherds.”</p><p>“Right.  Well.  They kind of… kidnapped me?  And Fjord and Yasha.  So I didn’t really… see much of the town, outside of, like, the basement of their creepy dungeon.”</p><p>Lucien, genuinely taken aback, tries to fit this information into the picture he’s been building of Jester Lavorre.  It doesn’t work.  This girl does not act or talk or look like a broken slave of the kind the Iron Shepherds are known for turning out.  Nor does she have the hollow-eyed thousand-yard-stare of those few souls whose loved ones can scrounge up enough coin to buy their freedom.</p><p>“Um, they grabbed us at night, under a Silence spell so we couldn’t wake anybody for help, and we weren’t strong then like we are now, we didn’t have a lot we could do to protect ourselves.   That’s why, um,”  Jester waves a hand vaguely in the direction of her friends, “with the dome.  You know.”</p><p>“Ah.” </p><p>Jester has begun sniffling faintly and Lucien casts about for something remotely comforting to say.</p><p>“Well, your friends must’ve come to get you straightaway, then.  Yeah?”</p><p>Unfortunately, this makes the sniffling <em>worse</em>, as Jester stammers “Yeah, they did, they… that’s how… that’s…” and then her voice breaks and Lucien realizes to his horror that she is <em>crying </em>and he is the <em>only person in shouting distance</em>.  He looks around – with <em>all </em>his eyes – for someone, anyone he can pass her off to.</p><p>Jester manages to get control of her breathing long enough to choke out, “That’s how Molly died.  ‘Cause they came right away to rescue us.  And I didn’t even get to say goodbye!”</p><p>Oh.  Oh no.  He is not cut out for this.  Her friend Caduceus would probably be best to take over here, but he’d settle for Cree – it just seems like the kind of thing a cleric would know how to handle.  Sadly, his connection to his people makes him fully aware that Cree is nowhere <em>near</em> them right now, and even if she started coming back towards the fire right <em>now, </em>it would still be several minutes before she could arrive.  Caduceus, he has no idea how to locate.  He thinks it shouldn’t be <em>possible </em>for someone <em>that tall </em>and <em>that pink </em>to just vanish, but apparently that’s another one of the firbolg’s many varied talents.</p><p>Lucien fishes through the pockets of his heavy coat until he comes up with a slightly rumpled handkerchief and holds it out to Jester like a peace offering.  Jester, who had been trying to wipe her tears away with her sleeves, buries her face in it and sobs.</p><p>Every few minutes, the sobs will die down enough for Jester to get a few sentences out, until something she says triggers another flood of tears. “I’m sorry!  I didn’t mean to bring him up again!  I know – I know it isn’t – it isn’t <em>fair </em>to you to keep bringing him up all the time but I just ---  It’s <em>hard</em>, because the last time I saw him he was <em>fine</em>, and then, then he was just <em>gone</em>.  And I – and I – I didn’t get to say <em>goodbye </em>or <em>thank you </em>or <em>sorry for getting you killed</em>, he just – there was just this empty space!  And now <em>you’re </em>here, and I want to be friends with you, like <em>you-</em>you, I promise, I do, but it’s just – it’s <em>hard</em>, okay?  I’m sorry!”</p><p>Lucien has never felt more awkward than he does as he very hesitantly pats her shoulder and tries a little “There, there,” and an “it’s okay,” before lapsing into an increasingly heavy silence broken only by Jester occasionally gasping for breath.  She cries for several minutes, while he sits there trying to look at <em>anything but her</em>, which is hard, when he’s so used to looking at <em>everything</em>.  When she finally calms down, he keeps his gaze carefully angled away until she gives a little huff.</p><p>“Whew!  I guess I needed that, huh?  Sorry to spring that on you like that, I promise I’ll wash your handkerchief before I give it back!”  When he finally looks over at her again, her eyes are still red and puffy, and her nose has darkened to a deep purple-blue.  It’s obvious that she’s been crying.  But her smile is as wide and cheerful as he’s ever seen it, and she sounds like she’s back to her old, chipper self.  Lucien knows a mask when he sees one, but he’s absolutely willing to let her have her illusions.  He’s just ready for this conversation to be over.</p><p>“Hm.  I should go see what Veth and Beau are getting up to.  If we don’t watch them, they end up shooting each other’s butts!”  And for a moment he thinks <em>those </em>are going to be her parting words, as she gets up and dusts off her skirt and starts walking away.  And then she pauses.</p><p>“Can I ask you a favor?”</p><p><em>Ah, </em>thinks Lucien, <em>a </em>favor.  He thought it was strange, this emphatic attempt to be <em>friends</em> after the day they’d all had, and now, it seems, he will finally see what she’s really after.</p><p>“What sort of favor?”</p><p>“Can you… not tell my friends about this?  Not that we talked, that’s fine, I just – I don’t want them to know I cried.  Is that okay?”</p><p>Lucien raises his eyebrows for a moment, but nods.  He watches her go, this <em>Jester</em> with her earnest little favor, and feels – well, he’s not sure.  He feels <em>something</em>, some kind of vaguely uncomfortable pinching in his chest.  He can see why people like this one.  Not him, of course, they’re not going to be <em>friends, </em>definitely not, but… <em>other </em>people.  He can see it, now.</p><hr/><p>Jester is only about a dozen paces away when she hears her best friend’s voice in her ear.  She doesn’t bother looking around for him – there are too many people around for him to come visible, but she tilts her head just <em>so </em>to make it clear she’s listening.</p><p><em>“I’m so </em>proud <em>of you!  All that talking and not a </em>word <em>of a lie!  </em>Complete honesty<em> and yet you had him wrapped around your finger!  What a delightful trick!”</em></p><p>Jester doesn’t reply, but as she joins back up with the rest of the Mighty Nein, she allows herself one small, triumphant smile.</p>
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